W's Weasel Words

e went to war because we were attacked..."

     Those are the words of George W. Bush defending the reasons for going to Iraq. When did he say this? He uttered those words in his Weekly Radio broadcast this past Saturday, June 18th, 2005. This despite the findings of the 9/11 Commission, released last year.

     The 9/11 Commission, (which Bush was against forming, which he refused to sit before without Dick Cheney at his side, where he would not allow himself to be taped), noted "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda co-operated on attacks against the United States." So why is it, just over a year to-the-day that the report was released, that Bush is still linking Iraq with the tragic attack in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C.?

     This is not a mistake on the part of George W. Bush. This is not a faux pas. This is a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. The radio address, in full context, reads:

"As we work to deliver opportunity at home, we're also keeping you safe from threats from abroad. We went to war because we were attacked, and we are at war today because there are still people out there who want to harm our country and hurt our citizens. Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world's terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror. These foreign terrorists violently oppose the rise of a free and democratic Iraq, because they know that when we replace despair and hatred with liberty and hope, they lose their recruiting grounds for terror."

     Notice the careful crafting of the words. Bush mentions how people "disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power", yet he never once mentions Afghanistan nor Osama bin Laden, the so-called "master mind" behind the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11th, 2001. If a man named Bob Jones from two blocks away comes into your yard and burns your house to the ground, the police do not send the SWAT team to assault Bob's neighbor, Fred Smith, for something Bob Jones did, then say that it was necessary because you were attacked. That would be ludicrous. Yet, that is essentially what George W. Bush has done in Iraq. And he keeps insisting that we've preemptively attacked Iraq because we were attacked, despite all evidence to the contrary.

     Sadly, there are those in this country that will believe it, just because George W. Bush said so, or Dick Cheney said so. You call these believers "sheeple"; they look, walk, talk and act just like people, but they blindly follow their leaders like sheep follow a shepherd, without question.

     These sheeple are the same ones who fall for W's Weasel Words and doublespeak, where up-is-down, black-is-white and everyday is Opposites Day. They live in a world where polluting the air is called the "Clear Skies Initiative"; where a tax on the wealthier members of our country is called the "death tax" instead of what it is, a tax on estates; and where the "Healthy Forests" program allows more logging. And these happy-go-lucky sheeple keep voting against their own best interests, 'cause ol' Dubya is a good Christian feller that talks just like them...